Well, this morning we take a break from our series and First Peter, and we're gonna spend four weeks in a kind of a sub series of a series that we have going on periodically called Reforming Worship, Biblical Foundations to Worship God by the Word of God. And this morning we're going to begin to unpack the question, of baptism and specifically, why do we baptize babies? Why do we baptize? babies. So we're going to spend three weeks on this topic, and then we'll spend one week on the Lord's Supper, which I think is a little bit more clear of a sacrament than baptism is. And the reason that we're taking a break for this is, as I've already announced, is that we're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper for the first time on the 6th of September. And so I think it's really important. Yeah, Peter, that's right. It's really important to know what we're doing when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, to have a biblical understanding. In all things, we are to renew our minds. That's the New Testament principle. We transform by the renewing of our minds. And New Testament Christianity is not about doing just kind of empty, rote things that we don't understand. It's about doing things with understanding of the mind and of the heart. So we wanna unpack this doctrine. In the next three weeks with this, oh, sorry, one other thing too, with the Lord's Supper on the 6th, and then we're gonna have a baptism service on the 13th. So whether you as an adult have not been baptized, or one of your kids, or all of your kids have not been baptized, we would love to baptize you on the 13th. Jonas and Patty are gonna baptize their second born on, what Deborah? Yeah, it's because it's recorded. I didn't wanna give names. Anyways, they're gonna baptize their second born. So this would be a great opportunity if you'd like to be baptized as well, or any of your kids. As we come to the subject of infant baptism, it's, as you well know, a very controversial subject. I myself grew up in a different tradition, in a baptistic tradition where you were only baptized when you yourself made a profession of faith. So I think I was nine years old when I was baptized that way. And some churches in that tradition will only baptize adults. And I think the reason for that is the belief that baptism is only for individuals who individually profess faith in Jesus Christ. and that anyone else should not be baptized. And the focus of that baptism usually is waiting until the church believes that you're actually saved, that you're truly saved or regenerated. And that was the tradition I grew up in. I even pastored in that tradition for six years before really having a change of view. And that discussion, I'll probably save for the third week in this series when we're gonna talk about pastoral experience. But over these three weeks, we're gonna cover three main subjects. So today, we're gonna talk about biblical foundations. biblical foundations for the to answer the question why do we baptize babies next week we're going to look at historical practice what was the practice of the church historically which is really important because None of us approaches our Bible with a blank slate, with pure objectivity when we read the Bible. We all have backgrounds and assumptions and presuppositions that we read into the text. And so historical theology helps us know, are we reading outside of maybe our Western individualistic mindset? Are we reading like the church has always read? And even if we differ, it's really important to know when we're differing from the historic view. So historic theology is just essential for biblical interpretation. And so we're gonna look at that in week two. And actually for me, that was a turning point when I started to realize that 90% of my theological heroes practice infant baptism. why and i've started to read read them so we're going to look at that all the way from the early church all the way to today that'll be week two and then uh week three we're going to talk about pastoral experience and and really just what is the experience of growing up either in a in an infant baptist world or a credo baptist credo just means faith it's latin word for faith a believers Baptist kind of environment, and what are the pitfalls of both traditions? And what do we need to understand? So I hope these three weeks will be really clarifying for you. I have found that trying to study this subject can be maddening. And the reason is, is that most people writing today on the subject will lose their job if they change their position. If you're a Baptist professor writing on baptism, if you start teaching infant baptism, you ain't gonna be teaching at that institution anymore, or you're not gonna be preaching at that institution anymore, and the vice versa on the infant Baptist side. And actually for me, my change resulted in moving to a new denomination. It was really scary, I think, at first. But so I bring this series to you and I, Lord willing, teach faithfully from the text with a very sympathetic heart and mind to both sides of the spectrum. And what I'm giving to you is really both the historical kind of argument for reformed infant baptism, that's what I'm going to give you, But I'd also be coming from my take on the subject. And I really like to summarize and make things as clear as possible. So I hope that this subject or the way I give it to you will be clear for you. I'd really encourage you to take notes. on this because you're gonna need to go back and read scripture texts. Unlike a normal series when we're going through just like three or four verses of scripture, in this series I'm gonna be drawing on a lot of different texts. The main ones, you can see they're in your worship folder this morning and there's quite a few. uh to look at and so we're gonna we're not gonna extensively look at all these but that gives you something where you can go back and study more for yourself remember again at the end of the day it's about you understanding what's what's going on and i believe that the baptism discussion is actually fairly straightforward and simple But I think a lot of us have made it overly complex because of a lot of unfortunate straw men that have been built up along the way. I don't know if you know what a straw man is, but it's a term in logic when you're arguing. A straw man is when you build up a shallow, misrepresented version of your opponent's argument, and then you knock it down. You know, you show why it's wrong. But you didn't actually give a good, articulate, sound argument of your enemy or your opponent's position. So you build this straw man that's easy to chop down and then you dance around that you defeated your opponent, logically. So it's a straw man fallacy. And I believe that that's happened a lot. I was very frustrated when I was studying the subject because a lot of the books when I was reading where they felt like they weren't giving me the whole picture. So I actually ended up going back to reading kind of ancient primary sources to get my mind around it and then wrestling with the Bible along the way. And so I hope that I'm not guilty of building up any strawmen along the way. And so I hope that this will be a simple, succinct kind of series that will help you know what in the world we're doing and why. We baptize babies. So this morning, we are going to look at this subject. If you want a broader kind of view of our theology of baptism, I have on the table back there a lesson, a message that I gave earlier this year called Baptism is About the Gospel. So I just printed off some manuscripts, they're right back there, and you're welcome to take that home, which we'll cover more broadly what baptism is, what it means, because we're not going to look at that specifically. In these three weeks, we're just going to answer the question, why do we baptize babies? Okay? So Westminster Shorter Catechism question 95, which is part of our statement of faith as Presbyterians, asks the question, to whom is baptism to be administered? And the answer is, baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church till they profess their faith in Christ and obedience to him. But the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized." And what we see here in the first half is a statement that I believe every evangelical Christian would believe. And that is baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church till they profess their faith in Christ and obedience to him. That is the statement I believe that every Baptist, every Anabaptist, every Pentecostal, every, you name it, any evangelical would affirm that you have to have faith, a profession of faith before baptism. But now comes the controversial point. But the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized. Now this is going to be the point of departure for Anabaptists and Baptists and any that hold a credo-baptistic kind of position, that only those ever that profess, only those that profess faith can be baptized. So the question is, what is the grounds baptizing a baby? What is the grounds for this second controversial point that so much of church history has held to and that has always been in the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition? Why do we baptize babies? I'm gonna give you three reasons, three answers to that question this morning. And so these would be really important points if you're taking notes to write down. We're gonna look at three things this morning. Number one, covenant solidarity. Two, sacramental solidarity. And then three, household solidarity. So these are the three big headers that we're gonna look at this morning. So beginning with number one, covenant solidarity. And here we're gonna look at Genesis chapter 17, as well as Galatians three, as kind of our anchor text for this principle, covenant solidarity. The background of the covenant needs to be explained here. Sometimes we call this covenant, the covenant of grace. It's this thread that holds the Old Testament and the New Testament together, the covenant of grace. It's a theological phrase, kind of like the Trinity. The Trinity is not a word that you find in the Bible, but it's a theological concept about God, right? And so the same thing here, when we talk about the covenant of grace, it's that phrase, the covenant of grace is not found in the Bible, covenant's found all over. But that covenant of grace is a theological concept, like the concept of the Trinity, that holds together a biblical principle. If you don't like that term, you can also just call it the gospel covenant. The gospel covenant. We saw in our scripture reading that the gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham. Paul said that in Galatians 3. That the gospel is not just a New Testament thing. It was actually promised all the way back in the Old Testament. And it's part of a covenant that God keeps from A to Z, from beginning to end. Let me just give you a few scripture texts as a background for the covenant of grace or the gospel covenant. Genesis 3.15, Genesis 3.15, which is where God promises to give Eve a seed that is an offspring that will crush the head of the serpent. That's called the proto-gospel. The proto-euangelion is the Greek term. The first time the gospel is mentioned in the Bible. Genesis 3.15. Through this seed of Eve, Satan, the serpent, will be crushed. all the way through, biologically, we have this spread of offspring, which leads to Abraham. So you can write down Genesis 12, one to three. And in Genesis 12, God covenants with Abraham, and his name was Abram at that point. And he said that God will make, will bless him, and that Abraham's offspring will be a blessing. that through him all the families of the earth will be blessed. And he uses this phrase families, all the families of the earth will be blessed. And so this covenant continues and expands from this first gospel in Genesis 3.15 now to the gospel being given. This is what Genesis 12 is what Paul is referring to when the gospel was preached beforehand and you all the nations of the earth will be blessed, all the families. You can, this gospel is going to expand, this gospel covenant of grace to 2 Samuel 7, when God promises to David, who is an offspring of Abraham, that he will have an eternal throne. One of his offspring will sit on his throne forever. Of course, that's speaking of Christ. And this covenant continues and grows and expands to Jeremiah 31, where we see the promise of the regenerated heart that will be given a new heart. And then we see this gospel covenant of grace expand all the way to Luke 1, when Mary rejoices that God's promise to Abraham is now being fulfilled in her womb. We see that also then in Galatians 3, which I've already mentioned. In Galatians 3.17, Paul says, this promise to Abraham's offspring was not to many, but to one, to Christ. The covenant is also ultimately made with Christ and then his people who by faith are sons of Adam. We are children, we are sons and daughters of Abraham, not Adam, of Abraham, excuse me. Sons and daughters of Abraham. through faith in Christ. So the Old Testament is not this old kind of out-of-date story for somebody else. It's not somebody else's mail, like you get in the mailbox, oh, this is an address to me. This is for God's people. And all of these promises made in the Old Testament are kept in the New Testament. So you can think of the Old Testament as promises made, and then the New Testament as promises kept. And the whole Bible holds together with this covenant of grace, this gospel covenant that's coming. There's gonna be this seed that's gonna save and deliver God's people, and it's fulfilled in Christ. So that is the background of this covenant that links the Old and New Testament together as one story, one narrative, not many stories and many narratives. One story, it's solid. That's why we're beginning here with covenant solidarity. Now we come to the baptism of babies. What's our Old Testament anchor for this? And we see in Genesis 17, 1 to 14, which we read as our scripture reading today, we see the foundation for giving our children the sign of the gospel covenant. So if you have your Bibles open or if you don't, keep them open to Genesis 17. We're going to look at a few key parts here. So in keeping with covenant solidarity, it's essential that we understand Genesis 17. I just want to point out a few things here. Number one, as I've said already, that this is a covenant made with Christ. We see here in verse seven, where God says to Abraham, and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. Paul in Galatians three references this verse and saying he wasn't making this covenant with many offsprings plural, but offspring one with Christ. So the offspring being mentioned here in Genesis 17 and 17 seven is Christ. Secondly, we see in verse seven that this is an everlasting covenant. This isn't a time bound covenant. It's not like the law that was for a fixed period of time and then would be done away with. This is an everlasting covenant. We also need to see here, down in verses nine to 10, that this is a covenant that believing parents must keep. This is a covenant that believing parents must keep. Look here at verses nine and 10. And God said to Abraham, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you, not just him, but you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. So God is speaking about a covenant right that not just Abraham was to keep, but that everyone after him was to keep. as well throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised." So in the Old Testament period, circumcision was the sign that every male was to have, to carry about in their bodies, the sign that they were the covenant people of God. And every father, every mother was responsible that their children, that their male children were given this sign throughout their generations. And this sign again is a sign of the covenant. We see that in verse 11. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. It's a visible sign of the covenant. It's one of the few physical things that we do as a sign of our covenant with God. Passover will be the other one here in the Old Testament period. We also need to see that it's every male in 1213, it's every male born, bought or foreigner. Every male had to bear it. It wasn't just the children that you had. Anyone that belonged to your house had to be circumcised if they were male. We see in 12 to 13, he who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh. Again, we see the nature of it, an everlasting covenant. Note here that even Ishmael, who is clearly an unbeliever, is to be circumcised. Even Ishmael is to be given the sign of the gospel, who God, of all people, will know is not going to stay in the covenant. He's going to break the covenant and leave the covenant. Nevertheless, even Ishmael, as one of Abraham's offspring, was to bear the sign of the covenant, which, as I've said already, is nothing more than a sign of the gospel, the gospel promise, the gospel preached beforehand to Abraham. Finally, in Genesis 17, we need to understand that to not circumcise your child or to not be circumcised as a male is to break the covenant. In 14, God says to Abraham, any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. So bearing the sign of the gospel covenant is a very serious matter. To not wear it, to not bear it, is a sign of breaking the covenant with God. You're essentially then treated as an unbeliever at that point. So this is a very serious beginning to this sign. But we see here that this is a sign that's fulfilled in Christ, but it's an everlasting covenant. Believing parents must keep it. It's a sign of the covenant. Every male in the house, born, bought, foreigner, evenish male. must wear it, and that to not be circumcised is to break the covenant. So these are everlasting principles that are gonna be fleshed out. They're gonna be transformed in the New Testament, but these are nevertheless Old Testament foundational principles. As Paul will say to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10, that the Old Testament was written for our instruction. They were written that we might not err as they did, as he goes on. Paul has a different matter he's addressing there, but the Old Testament was written for our instruction. So we can understand spiritual things that will be clarified in the new. This is the foundation for why we baptize our babies, because we are part of that same covenant of grace, the same gospel covenant. I want to say one last thing here, and then we'll move on to the second point. It's really important to remember that in the Old Testament, circumcision was not part of the law. I think when we usually think about circumcision, we think about it as part of the Mosaic law. that came for a temporal period of time before Christ to govern the national people of Israel. But note here that circumcision was given before the law as part of the gospel covenant. Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness. That's why Paul can refer to that as the gospel. It was credited as righteous because of his faith. And the Bible clearly says this is the gospel preached before him, that through Abraham, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. But now, in that gospel covenant, what does God call Abraham to do? Who is the one who profess faith? God tells Abraham to give his children the sign of his faith. Even Ishmael, who God knows is not really part of the covenant. It was Abraham's faith in the gospel. And God called Abraham to give his children the sign of his faith. That is such a counterintuitive principle as we live in and breathe the Western individualistic air. But we need to not be American or Norwegian first in how we read the Bible, right? We need to be biblical. We need to understand how the Hebrews understood. And here, God Almighty, the God of the covenant, gives Abraham the gospel, Abraham believes, and God calls Abraham to give his children the sign of his faith. Even unbelieving Ishmael. Let's move on to the second point, sacramental solidarity. Sacramental solidarity. And here we're gonna very briefly look at Colossians chapter two. So you can turn your Bibles there, Colossians chapter two. So here in Colossians 2, we're just gonna read two verses and dwell briefly on this. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh, the circumcision of Christ. having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. In both the Old and New Testaments, we have a parallel of two sacraments. In the Old Testament, you have circumcision, which is the entrance rite, to the covenant, and then you have the Passover, which is the ongoing rite that they were to keep throughout their generations every year. So the way you entered into the covenant people was through circumcision or being part of a circumcised household if you're a female. And then the way you kept the covenant was by annually participating in the Passover. Those were the two main sacraments. In the New Testament, we see the same thing. Both of those Old Testament sacraments have been transformed into New Testament sacraments through baptism, which is now the entrance sacrament, and then the Lord's Supper, which is the ongoing sacrament that we will begin to do this coming month and that we will then keep regularly. So we have these two parallel things, and we see the justification for this parallel of circumcision and baptism here in Colossians 2. I just wanna point out two things in brief. One is that the circumcision of Christ is Christian baptism. That's what we see here. Again, Paul says, in him, you also were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, participle underneath that, having been buried with him in baptism. Really what the New Testament, when the New Testament refers to baptism, it refers to somebody who has professed faith, they've repented, professed faith in Christ, and are baptized. And in the New Testament period, there is no concept of an unbaptized believer, because that was the beginning of baptism. Next week, we'll even look at some early church documents outside the New Testament that refer to this, which is very, very interesting. But the basic principle is that when you profess faith in Christ and you believe in him, and you're baptized, that is the circumcision of Christ. So circumcision has been taken over by Christian baptism. Okay, so that doesn't argue anything necessarily for why we baptize babies other than to show that circumcision and baptism are parallel concepts, which comes into play. One of the things with the whole argument is that it's an argument of many parts. It's not just like one simple proof text. It's just like the Trinity again. You can't go to one verse to prove the Trinity. You have to think theologically. And that's the same thing here when we talk about, as we said, the covenant of grace, and then how that relates to why believing households baptize their children and their babies. But anyways, here we're just making the simple point of sacramental solidarity that circumcision and baptism are the parallel sacraments in the Old and New Testament. And it's a sacrament for all who have received. So now it's not just male children, it's male and female. Everyone in the New Testament age is to bear the entrance right of the covenant being baptized together. So we have there covenant solidarity, now sacramental solidarity, and thirdly, household solidarity. You have a number of texts in your worship folder, and I'm gonna mention them in brief, some of them, but you can read and sign them more for yourself afterwards. I'd encourage you to do that. The basic principle here, you could really find in Joshua 24, 15, when Joshua says, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, Joshua 24, 15. And what we see here is the principle of household solidarity. And what we mean by that is that the faith of the head of the house represents the faith of the whole household. Every member, whether they're natural born or not, as we saw with the Abrahamic covenant, as for me and my house, children, servants, whoever's there, we will serve the Lord. And that the faith of the head of the house represents the faith of the whole family. In one way, I like to say it's they're innocent until proven guilty. Anyone in that household could openly reject the covenant, and they would be called a covenant breaker. But until that point, they're assumed innocent, that they are part of the covenant, that the faith of the father or the head of the house represents the faith of the family. And we see this principle in 1 Corinthians 7, 14. And we've too many texts here to turn to it, but you can write it down, it's in your worship folder. But in 1 Corinthians 7, 14, we learned that the faith of a believing parent, even if just one of the parents believes, the faith of that parent makes the child holy. Paul uses the term holy, that the child is holy because of the faith of a believing parent. And the point there is not the age of the child, whether they're an infant or whether they're nine or 15, it's that the child is considered holy because of the faith of the parent. So the parent's faith, this is household solidarity, represents the faith of the child. And this term holy, if you are a student of the Bible and you've read your old and you know your Old Testament, holy is a term that is only ever used of God's people. It's only ever used of God's people. It's only ever used of circumcised people or people in a house of circumcision, right? They are holy, holy itself is a sacramental covenantal term. You are holy if you are in good standing with the covenant. You are unholy if you're not and you need to be clean, you need to be cleansed. So we have this principle in the New Testament. What I wanna show you here is that in the New Testament, the principle of household solidarity continues. It's not super irrigated for now like a Western principle of individualism. household solidarity continues in the New Testament area. And we see it very clearly here in 1 Corinthians 7, 14. Another important text on this principle of household solidarity is Luke 18, 15, and 16, where Jews are bringing their infants. Luke uses the term infants. They're bringing their infants to Jesus to be blessed. And the disciples are like telling them to get away. You know, they're probably the guys who like it really quiet during the sermon. You know, just go, that was a joke. They're telling him to get away. He says, no, bring them to me. And he blesses these infants. Cause he says, for to such belong the kingdom of heaven. for such belong the kingdom of heaven. And Jesus is not just speaking metaphorically that we need to approach him like a child, which is a New Testament principle. But he's saying to these, that these infants, to such belong the kingdom of heaven. Again, we need to read this in covenantal terms. These are Jews. These are the visible people of God bringing their children to Jesus. And he blesses them because he says to such belongs the kingdom of heaven. Again, in terms of the covenant, the only people that are part of the kingdom of God are people that are part of his covenant. Now why didn't Jesus baptize them? It's because this is before Christian baptism. Christian baptism is initiated in the Great Commission. Even John's baptism, John the Baptist, is different. So these are all things before Christian baptism. Christian baptism only comes after Christ has been crucified and raised and ascended into heaven. But we see the principle here of household solidarity to such the infant, even the infants, not just the toddlers, even the infants of such belong to the kingdom of heaven. Jesus himself has taught us that. So now we come to Acts and kind of the things I wanna conclude with here in this survey of biblical foundations. And you see a whole string of texts here in Acts in your worship folder that you can reference. I just gonna mention some things in briefly. Now we come to this text and we turn to Acts chapter two, when Peter's giving the sermon on the Mount. And you remember the crowd is cut to the heart And they cry out to Peter, and they say, what must we do to be saved? And Peter says to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. Remember, Abraham's gonna be the father of many nations, right? He's gonna be a blessing to all the families of the earth. when we read this text in light of the household solidary principle that's been going on for 2000 years in the Old Testament, that parents give their children the sign of the covenant, the sign of their faith, we come now to Acts 2, when he's preaching to a bunch of Jews from all over the Roman Empire, how are they gonna hear these words when he says, repent and be baptized, this promise is for you and your children? Are they going to go, wait a minute, we're Western individualists, that must mean it's when the children are old enough to believe, then they'll have the sign of the covenant. No, no, no. They're thinking household solidarity, because that's the biblical foundation that has been in existence since the beginning of the earth. Remember, we're even guilty of sin through Adam. That federal headship goes all the way to the garden. This principle. So we need to read this with the eyes of a Jew. Understand this with the eyes of the Jews. This promise is for you and your children. It goes back to the, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord for you and your house, you and your offspring after you. But now we go, well, maybe that's just a fanciful idea. Maybe there is a whole new change of pace, despite the fact that we see the principle of household solidarity in 1 Corinthians 7 and Luke 18 in the New Testament era. But then when we come to Acts, we see a series of household baptisms and another one that's mentioned in 1 Corinthians. So in Acts 10, Cornelius believes and his whole household is baptized. Lydia in chapter 16, Lydia is an interesting character. She's a female, but she's the head of her house. She believes and her whole family is baptized. Her whole house, I should say, not her family, her whole household was baptized. We have the Philippian jailer in chapter 16. He believes in the whole family, his whole household. I keep saying family, I need to say household, because it's servants too. The whole household was baptized. Crispus believes the whole household is baptized in chapter 18. And 1 Corinthians 1.16 is like a totally passing statement to the Corinthian church, because the Corinthians are making a big deal who baptized who. Did Paul baptize? Did Apollos baptize? You know, their party spirits. Paul goes, I don't even remember baptizing anyone. Except the household of Stephanus. I don't remember if I baptized anyone else. They're making a big deal. But you have another household. The household of Stephanus is baptized. And now we get into this debate, well, we don't know the age of the people. Maybe they're all, there's no young people, no infants. But that's not the point. The point is household solidarity. The point is that the faith of the head of the house represents the household. And this is a New Testament principle, as well as a 2000, well, even older, going back to the garden principle in the Old Testament. So we need to read from those eyes. We need to understand, not looking back with enlightenment eyes, when a lot of the individualism came in, with the enlightenment. We need to read with eyes, biblical eyes, with Old Testament foundation eyes along the way. The point is household solidarity. We'll look at one place here in Acts, in Acts 16, and then we will wrap up. But in Acts chapter 16, we have both Lydia's baptism, but then we also have the Philippian jailer's baptism. And I want to look at his real quick. Look at chapter 16, verses 31 to 34. And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him. and to all who were in the house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds. And he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into the house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. This interesting emphasis at the end, the rejoicing, was that the Philippian jailer, the head of the house, had believed in God. And now the whole family had a new God. They were now covenant people with the God of creation, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob, and David, of Christ. This is the principle of household solidarity. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. So as reformed people, when we talk about baptism, we talk about our families. We talk about our families as covenant families. We are families in covenant with God. We talk about our children as covenant children. It's a reminder of the solidarity we have with the covenant of grace that stems all the way back to Abraham and even before to Eve when God promised that a seed of Eve will crush the head of the serpent and that Abraham will be the father of many nations and of many families. So why do we baptize babies from the perspective of biblical foundations? We do so to keep covenant solidarity, sacramental solidarity, and household solidarity. Those are three basic anchor points to think about. So we are covenant families with covenant children. We also have that warning that goes all the way back to Genesis 17, that to not be baptized, whether as adults or with our children, we become covenant breakers. Baptism doesn't save you, so it's not an automatic ticket for your kid to be saved. The whole role of discipleship is to teach disciples to obey all that Jesus has taught and commanded. And that's something that we do throughout their life, from when they're born all the way to when they leave, and even when we're adults and they're adult kids, we can still raise them, though at that point they're responsible for themselves. The biblical principle of our children is innocent until proven guilty. not guilty until proven innocent. And unfortunately, in many cases, baptism is reversed, where you have to prove your innocence before you will be baptized. And then only then, when you've proved that you're saved, will you be baptized. But that's a reverse from the biblical principle of innocent until proven guilty. If you're part of the covenant family, even the infant is assumed to be a child of God until they grow up and God forbid, they walk away. Then they're a covenant breaker like Ishmael was, or many others in Israel that have broken the covenant. So these are the principles that we need to think about. It's a great privilege to be a covenant child, to grow up. Remember, baptism is the beginning of discipleship. Jesus in the Great Commission said, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Baptism is not a sign of your maturity as a Christian. Baptism is the beginning when we're weak and immature. And that can certainly be said of our babies. So these are the principles. Why do we baptize? Again, we keep covenant solidarity, sacramental solidarity, household solidarity. These are the biblical foundations for reformed Presbyterian baptism. Why we baptize our children. It's a wonderful sacrament that goes back thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years. to God's original promise of the gospel to Abraham when he was called to give his children the sign of his gospel faith. So we do that as obedient disciples. We baptize, we teach, we catechize, and the promise of the Great Commission is that in doing that, Christ is with us always to the end of the age. So those are the biblical foundations. Next week, we'll look at historical practice, and then the third week, pastoral experience. If you have questions, which I'm sure you do, happy to discuss them afterwards. But let's bow our heads in a word of prayer.